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Monday, 24 June 2013

Shades of blue ...

The colour in my garden goes through cyclical changes as it progresses through the seasons. Spring starts with the welcome splash of sunny yellow with the narcissi and daffodils. It then gives way to the riot of colour that is the tulips. These are followed by the swathe of purple of the alliums, drawing my eye to the bottom border away from the by now rather messy tulip foliage. My acorn-shaped alliums are in full bud still and yet to flower, as are my few remaining allium cristophii, ready to explode firework-like at any minute.

At the moment it is a calming blue, with these autumn-sown cornflowers flowering like mad and I can barely keep up with cutting them and bringing them indoors.

They are wild, straggly and I love them!

I also sowed nigella in the autumn and although not quite as tall as their neighbour, they are flowering prolifically too. They are also providing me with endless photo opportunities as I find their flowers fascinating.

They are great for cutting and when they go over, the seed heads are almost too good for throwing away.

I'm a little over-excited that soon I'll be cutting delphiniums too. I've said before that it feels such a luxury to be able to cut from my own garden and these were top of my list to have on the cutting patch.

Soon, the colour palette will change again, with hot pinks and acid brights emerging. I have the first roses out which have already added some zing to the border. What's flowering in your garden?

Not a lot, is the short answer. (I'm blaming the snails and Boo's big feet.) I love your blue flowers. I planted delphiniums and cornflowers but the poor things have been decimated. I'd forgotten about love-in-a-mist, which my dad used to grow.

I adore blue flowers! Perhaps it's because there are so few true blues to be had. The Nigellas are an amazing flower. Cornflowers were the first thing I ever grew. I was four and badgered my dad to turn my old sand box into a flower box. It was all cornflowers ( we called the bachelor buttons) and petunias. I've been hooked on flowers ever since. Thanks for such a beautiful post. : )x

Hi, I've just hopped over from Driftwood. The cornflower picture caught my eye!!I love your photography...the way that you have captured those Nigella....I've never really looked at them before. Aren't they unusual?! I looked at your other posts...what a change. I put in a cutting border when we were starting my garden but it, like so much of the rest of my garden, has become over grown with brambles, buttercups etc as I have been unable to do much these last 5 years! How I envy you. Please keep posting those lovely pics. Joan